Chapter 59: Archbishop (5)
The door finally opened, but Lou Gehrig and Hestia couldn’t step inside. They only wiggled their toes at the threshold.
It wasn’t because they were nervous in front of an archbishop.
It was because the sight before them was so shocking.
The Archbishop of the Hall of the City God, half-dressed in a revealing nightgown, was pressed close against pure-hearted Nike.
Lou Gehrig was shocked, but Hestia’s shock was on a whole different level.
“Lou Gehrig! Hestia! Co in!”
Nike beckoned to them. Seeing his fellow trainees put him in a good mood.
Spending ti with the archbishop wasn’t exactly pleasant. If anything, it carried the sa kind of discomfort as being with Morgana.
“Uh… o-okay.”
Lou Gehrig pushed the frozen Hestia from behind, and they stepped in.
It was a hospital visit that Hestia had forced them to make. At the very least, they should check Nike’s condition before heading back.
“Welco. What brings you here?”
Elena spoke calmly. It was unusual for an archbishop and laypeople to be conversing at all.
Boundless rcy and composure seeped from Elena’s tone. She tugged the corner of her lips at Hestia. Light returned to Hestia’s once vacant eyes.
“Glory to the Sun God. Your Grace, we’re Nike’s fellow trainees. We were told our peer was in critical condition, so we’ve co to confirm his condition.”
Hestia paid her respects imdiately. Up until now she had been staring with raised eyes, which had been very disrespectful.
“Is that so. Do co closer.”
The reason Elena had overlooked it until now had been to toy with Hestia on purpose. Hestia sensed that instinctively and tucked her tail.
Elena’s show of dominance succeeded.
Lou Gehrig and Hestia edged toward Nike. He looked healthy.
“Lou Gehrig! Is that at!”
“...Uh, y-yeah. Lamb skewers.”
“Thanks!”
Nike took the food from Lou Gehrig’s hand. Lou Gehrig had trouble keeping his eyes off the floor. The archbishop’s presence, as she stroked Nike’s hair, was overwhelming.
“…Nike. Are you okay?”
“Never better!”
Hestia asked carefully. Nike nodded as he bit into a skewer. His face was the picture of satisfaction.
“…I see… that’s good.”
Hestia glanced at the archbishop. That nightgown was so revealing it was hard to call its wearer a clergywoman. A crude remark rose to the base of her throat.
Elena wiped the sauce at Nike’s lips with her fingers and spoke.
“Are you finished here?”
“…?”
“I’m… still exhausted. If you’ve nothing more to say, could you leave so I can rest?”
The archbishop gave an order to leave. They had no grounds to remain.
As they themselves had said, they had delivered food and confird that he was well.
‘This woman…’
Hestia’s mood twisted. It felt like setting a child down by the water’s edge. She didn’t like leaving Nike by a strange woman’s side.
‘What is Nike thinking in all this? Are you enjoying this? Have you lost your mind?’
Hestia fud inside. As much as she wanted to grab the archbishop by the hair and tear her away, the opponent was far too prominent.
“…”
“…”
“Aren’t you going?”
Elena spoke again. This ti she turned her head and shot Hestia a sidelong look. Lou Gehrig hurriedly tugged on Hestia’s sleeve.
With no choice, Hestia pouted and gave a parting greeting.
“…Nike. Get well soon.”
“Got it! See you later!”
Cheerfully gnawing on a skewer, Nike was oblivious to anyone’s inner turmoil. He didn’t seem to know what the problem was. Or maybe he was enjoying it.
“…”
Lou Gehrig and Hestia bowed and withdrew. On the way out, Hestia bit her lip.
* * *
Black specks of crows crossed the sky, and the evening glow ran red like spilled blood.
Elena asked Nike to escort her. The pretext was that she wanted to sightsee in Vilnogos.
“Would you be so kind?”
“Leave it to !”
Nike agreed readily. Since completing training, he had ranged about quite diligently, so he knew the lay of the land like the back of his hand.
The archbishop’s power was astonishing. The curse stayed quiet even when Nike walked around. As she’d said, as long as he didn’t overdo it, he would be fine.
In return, guiding her around Vilnogos was the moral thing for any decent person to do.
“No matter when I see it, Vilnogos in the evening light is beautiful.”
“Hah? If you say so.”
Strolling across the grand plaza, Elena murmured. Nike looked up at the central spire. He felt eyes on him.
Elena must have felt it too, because she knit her brows and let out a small sigh.
“Nike? Do you have a special place that only you know?”
“A special place?”
Nike tilted his head, thinking. The definition of a special place was hard. He nodded as if he got the gist.
“Follow !”
Smiling, Elena followed in his steps. This ti she sent all escorts away and walked with him alone. Priests and paladins fidgeted anxiously.
The place Nike and Elena reached was the training ground.
When there were no new recruits, various hunters of the Order of the Silver Blades used it in common. Steady training was the shortcut to survival.
Among the slls of sweat and dust, hunters, upon spotting Elena, ca running in a flurry to pay their respects.
Only after she had dismissed them all did Elena ask Nike,
“Is this your special place?”
“It is.”
“Why is that?”
“Because it’s special!”
“…I see.”
Elena faltered for a mont, but smiled calmly and answered.
Even without a precise reason, his footsteps made it clear he was excited. The way he drank in everything about the training ground had a vigor she hadn’t seen in him before.
‘In effect, this was the first place where this boy ford a bond…’
Elena quietly guessed the reason in her heart. The broad outline took shape.
Nike, knowingly or not, placed great value on connection. His affection for those around him, starting with his fellow trainees, was larger than expected.
‘Given his unusual birth, he might cling to such things all the more.’
Out of his line of sight, Elena wetted her lips. The more she looked, the more she saw a background that would make it easy to isolate him from others and bind him to herself.
‘It’s worth bringing him to the Hall of the City God for examination. I don’t know what the Witch of Regret is hiding, but…’
Both sides had sly designs.
The Orders didn’t trust the Hall of the City God, and the Hall of the City God didn’t trust the Order of the Silver Blades or the Order of the Scales. Any order they couldn’t shackle was considered an enemy liable to betray them at any ti.
In Nike’s case, the Hall of the City God judged him to be a weapon the Silver Blades were secretly raising.
‘A clear act of sedition. We should watch a bit longer and secure definitive proof.’
In any case, the Hall of the City God had already been thinking of overhauling the order system in a big way.
The high-handed conduct of the Order of the Silver Blades and the Order of the Scales chafed badly. They wanted to seize this chance, find a pretext, and consolidate them into the Order of the Sacred Iron Chains.
‘If all this succeeds, my influence will grow too.’
And with that, the ambition to make her favored candidate for saint be chosen.
Elena smiled, pleased.
“Nike? Do you like the Order of the Silver Blades?”
Up ahead, wandering the training ground without aim, Nike glanced back and answered.
“I do.”
Looking around carefully, Elena said,
“…How much do you think the Order of the Silver Blades likes you?”
“Hah?”
Nike turned his whole body, as if to say what kind of question was that. Elena kept walking and passed him.
The hem of her saint’s habit fluttered in the wind.
“Nike, do you trust the Order of the Silver Blades?”
“Of course.”
“Then does the Order of the Silver Blades trust you?”
Nike dug at his ear.
It wasn’t worth listening to.
If there was no trust, they wouldn’t have looked after him all this ti.
“Bullshit. This is annoying.”
“Bullsh…”
Elena swallowed a breath.
No matter how uneducated and unusual he was, his words and actions were far too rough.
No matter how kind people were to you, crossing the line this far was well beyond common sense.
‘...How amusing.’
But now was the ti to endure it.
For so reason, she wasn’t even particularly angry. Just taken aback.
He was charming enough to put up with such insults. Elena herself couldn’t define what that attraction was.
“Nike. As Archbishop of the Hall of the City God, allow one piece of advice.”
“I don’t need it?”
“…There’s no harm in hearing it.”
“Fine.”
Nike nodded because he had to. He lanted inwardly that lately there had been far too many botherso things.
“Doubt everything at your side. There is no one you can trust completely. Of course… that includes .”
Nike raised his brows. He had heard it so often he was sick of it.
Vigo, Rowen, Morgana, even witches had all said it at least once.
“Is everybody in the world a liar?”
“Yes, that’s right. You know it well.”
“Boring…”
“You’re too young, Nike. You’re pure. You need to know the true evil of the world. Do you think this world is filled with good?”
“I don’t know!”
Elena took his hand.
Her eyes were those of soone looking at a pitiable little lamb.
Nike felt a visceral aversion.
“No one— no one should be trusted. Morgana and Vigo, those whose true intentions you can’t read, of course, and that woman Rowen you like and the fellow trainee who ca to see you, the sa goes for them.”
“Hah…?”
“They might pretend to care about you now, but at the mont you really need them, they’ll abandon you.”
Nike frowned. One by one, the people around him ca to mind.
‘Rowen would betray ?’
He couldn’t imagine it, even by force.
Morgana and Vigo, sure, that could happen, but not Rowen and Hestia.
‘I’d be the one to do it first.’
If it ever ca to it, the betrayer would be Nike himself.
So half of it was apt advice. Elena’s words were unexpectedly helpful. Nike nodded as if impressed.
“I’ll be careful!”
Elena smiled with satisfaction.
‘He’s coming over nicely.’
The archbishop was falling more and more for the boy called Nike.
It wasn’t only about his political value.
The boy’s innate charm and a hard-to-explain magnetism were pulling her in.
Elena smoothed his shoulder and spoke.
“It’s getting a little chilly. Shall we head back? On the way, I’ll buy whatever you want to eat.”
“Elena. An angel.”
“Ahaha… thanks for the complint, but that’s blasphemy.”
“Then what should I call you!”
“…Pretty noona, perhaps?”
“I’m hungry! Let’s go!”
* * *
Another week passed. Elena had recovered sowhat from the aftereffects of using her nimbus.
The commission Morgana had requested was wrapped up nicely, so she had no reason to remain in Vilnogos any longer.
Elena made ready to depart.
With the Hall of the City God having perford a public service, the return procession was all the more splendid and imposing. Because the archbishop was traveling, believers flocked in from nearby cities and villages.
In proportion to the numbers that surged like clouds, the archbishop’s influence grew stronger.
“Thank you for everything, Your Grace.”
“…Ahaha. Not at all. I rely showed kindness in accordance with doctrine. It’s nothing I should be thanked for.”
“…”
Morgana t her privately one last ti. At Elena’s request.
“Still, there is one favor I’d like to ask.”
The condemned prisoner closed her mouth. She had known this was coming. There was no way this viper of a woman would simply go back quietly.
“On the way back to the Hall of the City God, I plan to make a pilgrimage.”
“…Your Grace’s piety is, as ever, admirable.”
“However, I’ll need an escort. As you know, the contingent that followed was only to accompany as far as Vilnogos.”
“I’ll assign escorts. How many do you need?”
Morgana asked grudgingly. Even now, Elena was looking down on her with a smug smile.
“Two.”
“Understood. I’ll send elite hunters of the Order of the Silver Blades…”
“Nike and Hestia would be best.”
“…Those two are recruits. They’re not suitable for escort duty.”
Elena shook her head with gentle grace.
“It’s fine. Surely nothing will happen at a holy site.”
“…”
The answer had already been decided.
‘As expected, this is how you play it…’
Elena too had begun coveting Nike for reasons of her own. There were no exceptions.
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